Buddy comedy 'Stuber' goes nowhere

This image released by 20th Century Fox shows Dave Bautista, right, and Kumail Nanjiani, standing left, in a scene from "Stuber." (Hopper Stone/20th Century Fox via AP)

This image released by 20th Century Fox shows Dave Bautista, right, and Kumail Nanjiani, standing left, in a scene from "Stuber." (Hopper Stone/20th Century Fox via AP)

Photo: Hopper Stone

Photo: Hopper Stone

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This image released by 20th Century Fox shows Dave Bautista, right, and Kumail Nanjiani, standing left, in a scene from "Stuber." (Hopper Stone/20th Century Fox via AP)

This image released by 20th Century Fox shows Dave Bautista, right, and Kumail Nanjiani, standing left, in a scene from "Stuber." (Hopper Stone/20th Century Fox via AP)

Photo: Hopper Stone

Buddy comedy 'Stuber' goes nowhere

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August is the time of year for commercial movies that turn out bad, for formula pictures that are entirely uninspired. These are films that were created to do nothing but make money, but then the producers took a look and realized, no, this can't make money, it's too lousy, and so they dumped it in August.

Well, here it is, barely the middle of July, and there's "Stuber" to make it feel like it's next month already. This film is like cynicism transformed into celluloid, a movie made without love and with no vision, except of dollar signs.

Everything about it is unpleasant. It pairs Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista, both likable actors, but brings them together under miserable circumstances. But from the movie's first minutes, the audience wishes these two guys could go their separate ways.

The set-up itself is without appeal: A police detective (Bautista) wants to hunt down the evil criminal mastermind that killed his partner. The chance finally arrives when one day, right after completing Lasik eye surgery, he finds out that the criminal has a huge deal going down that night. So, the detective must act, immediately. But wait, his vision is blurry. So, he calls an Uber and enlists the poor driver, Stu (Nanjiani), to take him around on dangerous police business.

That's the big idea of screenwriter Tripper Clancy's film, and that's really the last idea. Not enough care is taken with the writing of the characters, particularly that of the detective. As we know from the "Guardians of the Galaxy" series, Bautista can be funny. But here he's written and directed into being a sledgehammer. There's no personality here. The detective employs no (potentially comical) strategies to enlist the driver on his side. He just comes in with force and imposes his will.

As such, we end up feeling sorry for Stu. We are never persuaded to care about the main plot, which is the part of the story being driven by the detective. On the contrary, we don't care for a minute if the bad guys are ever caught. Instead we look forward to Stu getting free of the detective, which is another way of saying that we look forward to the movie being over.

You can see how this might be a problem: The audience has a different wish list, and it's not the story being offered.

Under these circumstances, the best "Stuber" can do is distract and engage the audience on a scene by scene basis. But even there, it's hit and miss and mostly miss. Nanjiani does get an opportunity, now and then, to be funny. But the bottom line is that you don't need Kumail Nanjiani in your movie if you're just looking for another actor to fire a gun.

Mira Sorvino plays a police captain, and it's good to see her, and Natalie Morales and Betty Gilpin do as well as they can in small roles. But they can only do so much with Clancy's weak script and with Michael Dowse's non-direction direction.